Shoplifting and theft deterrence is an ongoing problem that has plagued the retail industry since its inception. In years past, thieves have had difficulty in selling stolen merchandise because there were very few available channels for reselling merchandise that both appealed to a mass audience and provided some degree of anonymity. However, with the growing popularity and accessibility of online auction sites and Internet advertising, thieves are now able to reach a broad, unsuspecting audience of consumers with stolen, pirated or gray market merchandise while remaining anonymous.
The situation has become even more difficult for retailers attempting to prevent loss from theft by implementing electronic article surveillance (“EAS”) systems. The EAS systems generally include at least one detection terminal located near an exit point which use radio frequency signals to detect the tags attached to items of merchandise. When the active tag is brought within detection of range of the terminal, an alarm is triggered. However, many shoplifters are not deterred by these EAS detection systems because retailers are unequipped to respond to the EAS alarms. Most retailers do not want to endanger employees by requiring them to chase down shoplifters who run out the door after setting off the alarm. Therefore, even with the implementation of EAS systems, many shoplifters still get away with stolen goods. When these “gate crashing” events occur, retailers do not even know which items were stolen until the inventory can be reconciled against sales records.
Radio-frequency identification (“RFID”) systems provide a method for identification that use devices called RFID tags to remotely store and retrieve data. An RFID tag may be attached to or incorporated into a product and identifies the product through radio-frequency (“RF”) waves. Most RFID tags contain an integrated circuit (“IC”) and an antenna. The IC stores and processes information that can be used to identify the item the RFID tag is affixed to/associated with, and modulates and demodulates an RF signal. The antenna receives and transmits the RF signal. Chipless RFID technology allows for discrete identification of tags without using an integrated circuit, thereby allowing tags to be printed directly onto assets or RFID labels at a lower cost than traditional tags. Today, there is a widespread use of RFID systems in enterprise supply chain management for improving the efficiency of inventory tracking and management.
Law enforcement personnel have generally responded to online reselling of lost or stolen merchandise only when there is clear evidence that a crime has been committed. Only when law enforcement officials have compelling evidence will they seek the cooperation of online auction companies to obtain records of sales activity for prosecution or investigate other privately operated sales websites to determine if the operators are legitimate distributors or resellers of the products. In those instances, the law enforcement personnel, or more often the actual victims of these types of theft, are forced to manually search through records of sales to look for suspicious activity in the sales records of auction sites.
Various methods to identify thieves selling goods using on-line auction sites have been undertaken by the authorities, but these have been ineffective for a number of reasons. For one thing, it is difficult to discern stolen merchandise in the large volume of legitimate merchandise being sold “used” by previous owners or as “new-in-box” by distributors. Additionally, sellers can easily create an auction site with a new online ID using fake credentials and can quickly disappear after the sales are complete. When items are stolen from inventory or during shipping, the sales of the merchandise can often be completed before the retailer even realizes that the merchandise is missing. Sales via piracy or “grey market” channels usually go undetected because there is no easy way to monitor the Internet for the appearance of sites that offer pirated or grey market items for sale. Additionally, Internet sales are usually not local so there is no way to track where stolen goods were actually sent.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for tracking and correlating known losses from various points in the merchandise supply chain with items sold or offered for sale on Internet advertising and auction sites.